The Sapient Paradox

The greatest mystery of mankind is our true identity. Who are we? This is the ultimate question of all philosophy, all religion and even some of science. A major clue resides in the great paradox of homo sapiens: We have been genetically distinct as a species for as much as 200,000 years, but for most of that time we didn’t act especially human – at least not like we do today. The archaeological record shows no sign of creativity until about 70,000 years ago. That’s the date of a rock carved with striations that don’t appear practical – mere decoration. This celebrated  rock was found in a cave on the South African Coast. And then there were cave paintings around 40,000 years ago or so. But it wasn’t until the development of agriculture around 10,000 years ago that we can look back and say these people acted like we would. The creation of large cities, metallurgy and writing all indicate that modern humans had arrived at last.

The sapient paradox is this 190,000 year lag, more of less, between the arrival of genetically modern homo sapiens and behaviorally modern homo sapiens. Paleoanthropologists mark this distinction by referring to the behaviorally modern humans as homo sapiens sapiens.